“What all these petty, superficial differences – from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts – add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s tribalism. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away.” Moustafa Bayoumi asks that we offer help and solidarity to innocent people who need protection, irrespective of geographical proximity or skin color.
Tag: media
Die beste Instanz
“Wir führen diese Debatte über Rassismus auf einer total primitiven Ebene. Es handelt sich um ein Menschenrecht. Schutz vor Diskriminierung ist ein Menschenrecht.”
Natasha A. Kelly
“Ich würde mir wünschen, dass wir wegkommen davon diese Ereignisse, wie sie jetzt auch im WDR passiert sind, immer als Einzelfälle zu diskutieren. Und es ist ja heute immer wieder aufgekommen, daß es sich um strukturelle Probleme handelt, die nach ’45 nicht einfach aufgehört haben. Und ich glaube es gibt ‘ne Situation, in der man sich in Deutschland sehr, sehr stark wünscht, daß nach ’45 ein besseres Deutschland entstanden ist [sic]. Aber der Wunsch alleine erzeugt noch nicht die Realität. Und da brauchen strukturelle Probleme strukturelle Lösungen.”
Max Czollek
Gemeinsam mit ihren Gästen formuliert Enissa Amani eine bemerkenswerte Antwort auf die vom WDR am 09.11.2020 erstmalig ausgestrahlte Sendung “Die letzte Instanz”, deren Umgang mit dem Thema Rassismus bestenfalls als naiv zu bezeichnen ist.
How is he the victim?
“How is he the victim in this scenario? This is a pregnant woman who had to arrange new levels of protection because of the amount of racist abuse she was receiving, which escalated when she announced that she was pregnant. She’s always had racist abuse, but when she announced her pregnancy it multiplied because there is so much toxic racism in our society. … That’s not Danny Baker’s fault but what is Danny Baker’s fault is that he did something which was so offensive that when I first saw it I actually thought it was a prank. I just thought nobody, nobody who the BBC gives a platform [sic] could be stupid enough to say this and not intend it to be racist. Because it is one of [sic] and we could talk about unintended racism or micro-aggression, this is none of those. This is the most blatant, clear cut example of racism. It is a [sic] Generations of people have recognised this as an overtly racist trope. Within people’s lifetimes, black people still being compared to monkeys and dehumanised regularly. … So, I’m not interested in him. I’m not interested in him or what happens to him. By the way, he’s already done a show which was more successful than his previous shows since he’s been sacked. So, if you are worried about his career then I suspect there is no reason to. I am not interested in him, I’m worried about the millions of black people who regularly live with this kind of abuse and then have to be in spaces like this where everybody denies it’s a problem. That is something that I could not feel more strongly about and I’m living it right now in this conversation. It’s not good enough.”
Afua Hirsch
Danny Baker, a mulit-award winning broadcaster, has recently been fired from the BBC after seemingly comparing Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor to a monkey.
Nine lessons
“Too much of our political debate just insults people’s intelligence and just suggests that every facet of Brexit you don’t like is purely a feature of only the Prime Minister’s version of it, rather than intrinsic to leaving.” Sir Ivan Rogers advocates the need for serious substance to replace plausible bullshit.
Brexit — the story so far
by Swanpride
Honestly, this whole mess has been ridiculous way longer. I mean, so far the story kind of like this [sic]:
UK: Yeah, your stupid little project, we don’t want to be part of it.
EU: That’s okay, we will do our thing over here and you can do your thing over there.
UK: We have changed our mind, we want to join after all.
France: Not sure if that is a good idea.
UK: Pretty please?????
EU: Okay, we kind of convinced France.
UK: Great. Now do what we want or we leave.
EU: What do you want?
UK: We don’t want to be in the Euro.
EU: Done.
UK: But we want the right to do Euro clearing in London.
EU: Done.
UK: We want a rebate.
EU: Done.
UK: We don’t want to be part of Schengen.
EU: Done.
UK: We want to expand the EU to the eastern European countries.
EU: Done.
UK: And we want Turkey to join.
EU: Eh…not sure about that one…I guess we can talk about this, depending on how Turkey develops…
UK: And we want extra rules for immigration because of all of those Eastern Europeans coming to us.
EU: But you wanted this. And you don’t even use the options you already have to control immigration.
UK: Otherwise we leave!
EU: Okay, if you want to. There is nothing more we can give you! Plus, we are kind of busy over here with a refugee crisis. You know, you could help, too? You were the one messing around in the middle east for centuries after all.
UK: You cause too much immigration! And you want Turkey to join! We have voted to leave.
EU: Yes, we noticed. Well, you know the rules, no trade negotiations until you trigger article 50 and then we first need to talk about how we entangle the UK from the EU [sic]. Than we can talk about trade.
UK: We need some time to discuss this.
EU: We aren’t in any hurry.
UK: We have now triggered article 50.
EU: Great so now we can talk about the divorce.
UK: But we want to talk about trade.
EU: First we need to clear up a number of important issues. So what is your suggestion?
UK: —
EU: How about this?
UK: No, totally inacceptable. What we want is our cake and eat it too.
EU: That is impossible.
UK: Go whistle.
EU: Ticktock.
UK: We have talked among ourselves. We want a transitional period or we won’t get done in time.
EU: Well, we might if you don’t delay all the time…but okay, provided that we made some progress. So what is you suggestion.
UK: We want all the advantage of the single market and the customs union while following our own standards and no free movement.
EU: That is impossible.
UK: YOU ARE BLACKMAILING US!!!!!
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End these offshore games or our democracy will die
“These are the fixes, but a real solution is ultimately political. We must accept that Big Finance and runaway inequality are incompatible with either a functioning democracy or a sustainable economy.” Aditya Chakrabortty sees a rotting core at the heart of our democracies.
You are the product
“What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect between what a company says it does—‘connect’, ‘build communities’—and the commercial reality. Note that the company’s knowledge about its users isn’t used merely to target ads but to shape the flow of news to them. Since there is so much content posted on the site, the algorithms used to filter and direct that content are the thing that determines what you see: people think their news feed is largely to do with their friends and interests, and it sort of is, with the crucial proviso that it is their friends and interests as mediated by the commercial interests of Facebook. Your eyes are directed towards the place where they are most valuable for Facebook.” John Lanchester does not know what will happen should this $450 billion penny ever drop.
Katz-und-Maus-Spiel der Polizei mit dem Rechtsstaat
“Es ist schlicht und ergreifend nicht wahr, dass die Kritik an Hamburgs Polizeiführung nur von einer ‘militanten linken Szene’ komme, wie Innensenator Grote Glauben machen will. Dass es letztere gibt und dass sie extrem gewaltbereit ist, bezweifelt niemand. Doch wenn Grote sagt, es gebe zwar viele, die auch friedlich campen wollten, aber ‘wir können sie nicht von potenziellen Gewalttätern trennen’, dann ist dies schlicht und ergreifend ein Offenbarungseid. Denn genau das ist nun einmal Aufgabe der Polizei. Man stelle sich vor, die Polizei würde mit ähnlicher Begründung Bundesligaspiele verbieten, weil sich im Stadion auch Gewalttäter aufhalten.” Andrej Reisin formuliert seine Kritik an der Vorgehensweise der Polizei vor und während des G20-Gipfels in Hamburg.